Conventionally, there have been proposed a variety of cables mounted in vehicles and vehicles having such cables mounted therein.
For example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 11-299008 (PTD 1) describes an electric vehicle including a battery, a charging cable connected to the battery and disposed in a storage room, a vehicular connector provided at an end of the charging cable, and a cylinder provided to penetrate a wall of the storage room and having the vehicular connector detachably connected thereto. When a commercial power supply is used to charge the battery, the vehicular connector is detached from the cylinder and the vehicular connector is connected to the commercial power supply.
Furthermore, in the field of cables, a variety of configurations have been proposed for minimizing/preventing excessive load exerted to cables.
For example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2008-136346 (PTD 2) describes a charging system including a branch line branched from a trunk line, a hooking connector connected to a device, an intermediate cable having one end connected to the hooking connector, and an intermediate joint connected to the branch line and the intermediate cable. The intermediate joint includes a flat-blade connector provided at the branch line and a flat-blade plug connected to the intermediate cable.
Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2010-158136 (PTD 3) describes a cabling structure including an electric conduction cable that couples between a charging device and an electric vehicle, and a load detection cable. The load detection cable is provided with a re-couplable separation unit that is provided between a portion coupled with the charging device and the other, coupled end of the load detection cable and is separated when a prescribed load is applied.
Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 5-328532 (PTD 4) describes a suspended charger including a safety joint that is provided at an intermediate portion of a cable having an end provided with a connector and is separated by tension.
Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 8-236206 (PTD 5) describes a device to select allowing/disallowing a connector to be disconnected, that includes a male connector secured to a device and a female connector that has a cable connected thereto and is provided with the male connector detachably.
Japanese Utility Model Registration No. 3097567 (PTD 6) describes a USB cable including a mechanism to reel up a cable.